In reading @runswimyoga 's last few posts, it occurs to me that he/she may have been offended by my bringing up the protesters at Oberlin. I think he/she may be missing some context. cobrat has said many times in the past that Oberlin is his alma mater, and he wrote a post which talked about how conservatives / moderates were trying to get an Oberlin professor fired.
The only reason I quoted from the letter was to provide a more balanced picture of who is making demands for firing at Oberlin. It was not to mock the protesters. The quotes I pulled from the letter were those directly on point and were (imo) representative of the letter. I truly do not think I editorialized too much other than to say that Oberlin seemed to be a pretty crappy place to attend if you were an Africana student and to say that the Oberlin president treated the students’ demands very dismissively.
If runswimyoga didn’t know that Oberlin was cobrat’s alma mater then he/she may have thought I brought the demands into the discussion out of the blue just in order to mock them.
P.S. I hope it is ok to discuss someone’s alma mater or gender if they have explicitly provided that information in previous posts.
That’s the funny part about discrimination or bias. The answer often is to discriminate or bias the other way and feel validated in that discrimination or bias.
Sometimes I think no one realizes the planet is made up of 7.125 billion individuals. Instead, they act as if there are 7.125 billion “clusters” that people consider “us” and the rest of the 7.125 billion minus the cluster size is “them”. There is no true “us” and there is no true “them”. We are both more different than our “us” and more the same as our “them” than most believe.
As for “safe spaces,” I read “segregated spaces”. A common complaint I hear is that if you let the “other” join a group, then the group is eventually made up almost entirely of “well-meaning others”. Have it your way - if you want segregated spaces, let others have their segregated spaces. Or don’t allow segregated spaces.
The goal in my mind is for everyone to calm down, and live and let live. Either certain types of speech are always limited, or they aren’t. An example of “limiting speech” would be that campus-wide email blasts through the university administration need to be limited to the group name, first meeting date, time, and place, and a contact email for more information. No one “has a right” to blast emails to the entire university using privileged information (all student email addresses). So setting up rules is not censoring, it is common sense.
As a sophomore in college, I was intimidated by the posters my RA had up in his room, the location of our floor meetings. He was a member of a protected group so I felt not only intimidated by the actual content of the posters, but was intimidated by what others would think of me if I reported the posters, especially since they were in his own room. They would have been banned from any hallway, and we had to sit in the meetings right next to them.
I would have been more comfortable to have a venue to talk about why I was upset (being subject to posters extremely offensive to me during a mandatory meeting) and what solution I had (have the hall meetings in someone else’s room or a meeting room in the dorm complex). But I did not have such a venue at the time, and it might have been worse if I was a sophomore this year instead of back in the day. To actually try to speak against something that offends individual sensibilities, for whatever reason, is being limited more and more. And it seems a lot of self-proclaimed groups have an excuse for any bad behavior by one of their members.
I am no where near the right wing zealot many of you seem to assume. Indeed I am often called both a right wing extremist and a progressive whack job. I choose to believe that this is not because of any underlying schizophrenia but because I try really hard to take each issue as it comes, and to avoid the intellectual laziness of saying this group is for it, therefor I oppose. YMMV.
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Sure. But the ooverarching point I was shooting at was not whether say the picture of Hillary in black face when she was in college is offensive, it is whether a college should preemptively bar such costumes, or more to the point whether a professor saying that we should all act rationally in deciding what costumes to wear is somehow objectinable.
There is no evidence anywhere that anyone thought the Stillman quad was a “safe house”. Maybe inside the dorms, then again maybe not. But no rational person walks outside and screams at someone else and expects that to remain private. We know this to be the case at Yale because there are several people visibly filming the altercation while shrieking girl was doing her thing. It was only after the video was released and the back lash started that this whole “who cares what she did, it was that nasty conservative who is really to blame!” argument started.
And again we have the problem with the video. I would bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that 8 out of 10 or more people in this country would not draw that conclusion after watching the Yale video. Tyrants, whether petty or grand, always operate best in the dark.
I don’t see a problem with free speech or this announcement. Hate speech is unacceptable. However, college should encourage an active debate of ideas. Why fear complex ideas or not invite their discussion. Shame on schools who do.
Your posts led me to believe you are on the right spectrum. Comments like “that nasty conservative” in your above post. Using the word “activists” in a negative manner when the “activists” are fighting for the left.
I am sorry you didn’t read my link about Yale residence halls. There is evidence. That is why I wrote what I wrote.
Maybe you can google Yale residence halls.
I don’t care how many people disagree with me about the video. The professor wasn’t listening. Look at the video from her point of view. Look at the whole situation, starting from what Yale residences are, from her point of view.
"As a sophomore in college, I was intimidated by the posters my RA had up in his room, the location of our floor meetings. He was a member of a protected group so I felt not only intimidated by the actual content of the posters, but was intimidated by what others would think of me if I reported the posters, especially since they were in his own room. "
I have to confess I am not understanding your anecdote at all. What was on these posters that was offensive to you?
I don’t use the word “activist” in an intentionally negative manner. I am related to several who are heavily, and I mean heavily, involved in protesting everything from domestic violence, police brutality, LGTBQ rights, the war in Iraq, and on and on. A couple have devoted their entire lives, both professionally and otherwise, to what they would consider a continuing fight for equality. Strangely, we get along fine because they are in the main serious people who are far more concerned with getting things done then making some grand point.
I refer to some college kids who just show up to a protest because it is the thing to do, or who claim that they should not have to read Ovid or be subjected to uncomfortable ideas negatively. Very much so. Partly because I know what a life truly devoted to social justice means, and the sacrifices it requires. And partly because nothing ever gets done by screaming shut up or putting your fingers in your ears. As someone a few posts back intimated, it is a wide world, with a lot of different view points. Best to try and understand them all, IMHO.
I did read it. I even responded after you posted that in my opinion the prohibition on filming was intended to address professional filming. I disagree that the quad (as opposed to the dorms themselves) are intended to be or are viewed as a private space. Your side of that debate has the handbook, mine has the evidence from the video of several people openly filming with out protest.
You are allowed. Often the majority opinion is wrong (just watched Caddyshack last night, “What they are all buying? Then sell, sell, sell.”) In this instance I think I am in the majority. But we each are allowed our opinion, as long as it is grounded in intellectual coherence.
@Ohiodad51: I’m unclear why the handbook is supposed to be persuasive. If I write a handbook for my front yard, does anyone think that makes it less public? Even if one does, what most people are arguing is reliance, and does anyone think most (or any) students actually read and relied on it? And why would it ever bind a third party like Lukianoff? I think there must be something I’m missing.
Stephanie Greene, senior at the University of Chicago, majoring in English. President of the Organization of Black Students. Member of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs Student Advisory Committee
Cosmo Albrecht, junior at the University of Chicago, majoring in public policy. Community and government liaison for the University of Chicago student government. Member of the student group, “Chicago Student Action.”
Charles Lipson, professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
and
Jonathan Chait, staff writer for New York magazine
@Demosthenes49, you and I are probably sympatico, and I doubt you are missing anything. I don’t think the hand book is persuasive. If @dstark does, then ok, I can tell him or her why I think that is wrong, but I get why someone who isn’t a lawyer and believes Lukianoff was in the wrong would rely on the handbook. FWIW, I used a similar analogy of walking out into my front yard to yell at the neigbor kids (since @dstark was complaining about “old farts”). I think the fact that several people were visibly recording with their cell phones during the altercation without demurr is pretty conclusive on both reliance and a broader expectation of privacy. As far as whether Lukianoff is bound by Yale policy, I guess it would come down to whether Lukianoff’s 1st amendment right to publish trumps whatever Yale policy there is on privacy. I think the fact that no such argument was ever attempted probably is strong evidence how most courts would come out, btw.
As for myself, I expect to be at Yale this semester. If I have time, I will stop by Silliman College and see if the area of the courtyard in question is publicly visible through the gates near the entrance (I remember it to be a rather big courtyard, so though I am sure that a chunk of it is visible I am not sure if the specific place where the confrontation occurred is visible.)
I will report back to the controlling legal authorities in this thread <<insert joke=“” about=“” not=“” providing=“” photographic=“” evidence=“” of=“” my=“” findings=“” for=“” fear=“” being=“” held=“” in=“” even=“” lower=“” regard=“” (if=“” that=“” is=“” possible)=“” by=“” aforesaid=“” authorities=“”>>
@CollegeAngst Post #951 Thx for sharing the NPR discussion above. Just spent 45 minutes listening to it in my car. Rational, interesting discussion amongst a few people who are actually currently at U Chicago, plus a few others.
@Ohiodad51: I agree about the other people filming. With regard to Lukianoff, I guess I’m asking why would we think Yale’s recording policy ever applied to him? I don’t think the 1st amendment is implicated here; it’s just a contracts question. Yale’s policy is a contract (probably incorporated into their admission agreement) to which Lukianoff, presumably, is not a party. It’s pretty uncommon to apply a contract to someone who didn’t sign it. Is the argument that anyone who steps onto Yale grounds implicitly agrees to be bound by all of Yale’s policies?
@al2simon: I don’t think it makes too much difference that the courtyard is open to the world (though interesting if it is) because it’s clearly open to the Yale student body, Yale employees, and visitors. That’s more than enough to make it a public space.
Not necessarily. Many corporate offices, businesses, and institutions have contracts where stepping on one’s grounds or using their product/service constitutes agreement with their TOS/conditions/policies.
One great example from my professional field…software licenses for operating systems/software.
According to Microsoft Windows’ EULA, installing or starting to use a computer with Microsoft Windows constitutes user agreement with the EULA. If one doesn’t want to agree, their option is to not install or delete the Windows partition and install a different operating system such as Linux.
The moment someone steps onto my (public!) university’s grounds, they’re bound by a whole host of rules that don’t apply three inches away (e.g., not smoking). Why would that be unexpected?
Agreed @Demosthenes49 . I suspect that you and others are right about the legal points.
My interest in seeing if that patch of the courtyard is visible from the sidewalk is partly for my own curiosity and partly to finally settle a 2300 year old philosophical debate. If the patch is visible (and it’s probably 25/75 shot that it is) and the response to that fact is what I think it will be, then I will have proven that Aristotle’s immovable object actually exists
Not to mention every college/university I know of…including Yale…campus rules in the handbook usually applies to everyone INCLUDING VISITORS. One illustration of this…the fact violators of some of those conditions…including visitors have been known to be sanctioned by being ordered off campus grounds and even banned from campus grounds at the pain of risking arrest for trespass in the event of noncompliance with the ban.
One university I know of in my city which is a peer of Yale’s…Columbia has banned visitors and yes, maintains a list of people banned from campus used by campus security to enforce and yes…if they find a banned person on campus to turn them over to the local authorities to be arrested for criminal trespass.
@cobrat: With software licensing, the user needs to affirmatively agree. A closer example would be websites, which often have terms of service that do not require affirmative agreement. Courts usually decline to enforce those because of the very issue I raise. In fact, I had a case on that recently which is what got me thinking here.
@dfbdfb: I’m not saying Yale couldn’t kick someone off their property for violating a rule in the handbook–Yale is a property owner and kick someone out for basically any reason it likes. But Yale couldn’t, for example, sue Lukianoff for breach of the policy because Lukianoff is not a signatory to that policy. In other words, he’s not bound by it (unless I’m missing something).
Public universities are government agents and a bit more complicated in ways that aren’t relevant here.
I recalled reading about some cases of people making the same argument that they “didn’t affirmatively agreed” to the software licensing terms when they were caught out in violation of them by doing things like using software licensed for non-profit/education use in a for-profit business or the condition the license was limited to one machine when they installed it on several PCs.
In all those cases, the courts ruled for the software license holders and stated those violators were bound by such agreements even though they didn’t “affirmatively agree” by signing a contract or even clicking an “i agree” button…and subjected those violators to criminal and in the followup civil case…awarded them large damages for the violations.
